GOTCHA

Enigmatic programmer Vortmit returns in this second entry in Lytes’ thriller series, involving a drug dealer, a tech millionaire, and a pill-popping lawyer on the South Carolina coast.

After causing a car collision, real estate attorney Gretchen Donovan fakes her death rather than face a disciplinary board for embezzlement, jury tampering, bribery, and other misdeeds. Then a stranger approaches her, thinking she’s someone else, and asks, “Are you still okay to do the drop?” She receives a bag and a briefcase, but she’s unaware that they belong to drug-dealing criminal Garrison Buchan, who’s infuriated when the real pickup guy, Oscar, ends up empty-handed. Meanwhile, Gretchen’s estranged sister, Rainey, hopes to reconnect with her sibling. Vortmit wants Rainey’s popular, million-dollar app, Gotcha—specifically, its “GPS linked proprietary DNA identification software.” After Gretchen’s pill-induced fog wears off, she injects one of the syringes she finds inside the briefcase, which contain an unknown white substance. The cops already have eyes on Oscar, as they know that he’s working for a drug dealer. Adding to the chaos is Vortmit, who tries to take down Garrison on his own to “exact justice that society couldn’t”—and temporarily silence his own mysterious, violence-filled dreams. Vortmit, the star of the previous series installment, appears only sporadically here and has little bearing on the plot. Still, the other players are appealingly vibrant, including sympathetic Oscar, an eccentric psychic named Lenny, and Gretchen, who undergoes a transformation of sorts after repeated injections of the mysterious substance. Despite the large cast, Lytes provides a mostly easy-to-follow plot that’s frequently witty; at one point, for example, the third-person narration defines a breakup as a “sudden yank at the ejection seat of their relationship.” Some aspects are confusing, though, such as Vortmit’s murky backstory and the appearances of Raoul and Jose, who headline their own chapter before promptly vanishing from the novel.

An often entertaining series entry with several new and engaging characters.